AMD to create advanced graphics for mobiles

Will license graphics cores to handheld manufacturers

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Processor and graphics heavyweight AMD has decided to get serious about mobile graphics. It announced at 3GSM in Barcelona that it is to create a new division dedicated to developing and licensing graphics technologies to mobile manufacturers.

With more than a billion handheld devices expected to be sold worldwide in 2007, and a growing demand for visually compelling content for these devices, AMD says there is a need for high resolution graphics and miniature 3D hardware acceleration technology - a view also backed up by its arch rival Nvidia.

The ultimate goal is for AMD cores to make it into the mobile phone industry en masse, which would enable slim phones to handle impressive 3D graphics.

"AMD has been developing graphics technology for PCs and video game consoles for more than 20 years, and has shipped more than 200 million AMD processors for mobile phones," said Paul Dal Santo at AMD's Handheld Division.

AMD is hoping that new mobile graphics standards, such as OpenGL ES 2.0 and OpenVG 1.0 will be adopted on an increasing number of new mobiles.